Hillary Clinton's Capitol Hill mission accomplished

Progressives have criticized Hillary Clinton for being too close to Wall Street. They’ve questioned her rhetoric on poverty and education. In early voting states they’ve come out in droves for her chief competitor, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But on Tuesday, even some of the most ardent populists in Congress had nothing but praise for the 2016 Democratic front-runner during her day trip to Capitol Hill, after peppering her with questions on income inequality, early childhood education and criminal justice reform.

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“She sounded good,” said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who has not endorsed in the presidential race and been critical of Clinton in the past. “She came out of the box saying that the problem facing the American average worker is income, and I’m like ‘yeah, absolutely.’ I was really pleased to hear that. She spoke eloquently on the need to address poverty. She is not afraid to say the ‘p’ word. She spoke on climate change. She is into it.”

Setting aside New Hampshire and Iowa to campaign for a day in her old stomping grounds, the former New York senator got an enthusiastic, at times rousing, reception from congressional Democrats — a constituency that broke in large numbers for Barack Obama in 2008 but has felt neglected during his six-plus years in the White House.

“I’m going to be your ally in policy and politics,” Clinton told lawmakers, according to members who attended a meeting of the full House Democratic Caucus.

Clinton’s appearance created a circuslike atmosphere in the Capitol: Lawmakers gave her several standing ovations during the day, and Democratic staffers lined the hallways to cheer her on as she walked from the House to the Senate. Even her liberal rival for the Democratic nomination, Sanders, ignored a chance to ding her on policy after she spoke at Democratic senators’ weekly lunch.

Indeed, Clinton was in friendly territory Tuesday. Nearly half of elected Democrats in Congress have already endorsed the former secretary of state, including Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Tim Kaine of Virginia. In the House, close to 70 of her colleagues have backed her bid.

But Clinton still needs to bring other members of Congress on board and to persuade others who’ve already endorsed her to go all out for her campaign. Some lawmakers, such as New York Democrat Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, have stumped for her in early voting states. Several senators have fundraised for her or have plans to do so imminently, including Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who remains officially neutral in the race.

She indulged members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus and Senate Democrats with multiple rounds of questioning — often going way over the time her team allotted for meetings. Clinton spent 90 minutes in the Senate Democratic lunch, first giving a short set of opening remarks that sketched out her support for the nuclear deal with Iran and then opening up the room to questions from the 46-member caucus, nearly all of whom attended the meeting. Neither Sanders (I-Vt.) nor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the popular liberal firebrand, asked questions.

During a meeting with Latino lawmakers, Clinton took questions from Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro on immigration policy and from New Mexico Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham on policies to help people who serve as the primary caregivers for sick or elderly family members.

Questions from Congressional Black Caucus members centered on criminal justice reform — a major issue for black lawmakers who have called mandatory minimum sentences racist — and increasing education standards for poor children.

Some senators pressed Clinton on Iran. Earlier in the day, she told House lawmakers that the nuclear deal unveiled by Obama on Tuesday was a solid compromise they should support. During the Senate lunch, Clinton spent a significant portion of the meeting laying out how hard it was for her personally to bring Iran to the negotiating table, negotiating with U.S. allies to implement an international sanctions regime that crippled Iran’s economy.

“It was important for her to remind everybody that just didn’t happen by magic,” said Kaine. “Everybody who looks at the situation gives the Obama team very high remarks for the way that the sanctions regime was implemented, and she played a key role in that.”

Though Sanders criticized Clinton for saying little about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, Democratic senators said she talked extensively about climate change, including how to frame the message on it politically against Republicans. She also mentioned the upcoming Paris climate change talks, an effort to create an international solution to climate change.

“It was an impressive show of command of policy issues that we care about in our party,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said.

But others seemed less enthused. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who hasn’t endorsed a 2016 presidential candidate, was asked after Clinton’s appearance if he was now ready to back her. “I’m not that interested in the presidential race,” Brown said.

As Democratic senators filed out and Democratic and GOP leaders gave their weekly news conferences, Clinton stayed inside the ornate Lyndon Baines Johnson room to spend one-on-one time with lingering lawmakers and staffers. She ate lunch with her aides and waited out the weekly circus of news conferences before breaking back for the House side to meet with more Democrats.

But first she posed for a photo with Senate pages and greeted scattered supporters in the Senate’s crowded reception room. Asked by POLITICO how the lunch went, Clinton replied: “Oh, it was great.”